The High Place (11 page)

‘Excuse me, sir, but your flies are open.’

‘Sir, so is my heart,’ he answered, laying down his paper and smiling at me with courteous interest.

‘I mean, your buttons are undone.’

‘That, sir,’ he said, ‘is a matter between them and their maker, who was compelled by his government to fashion them too small for their ignoble task.’

I hesitated between begging his pardon for unwarrantable interference, and pointing out that the local police might con­sider the excuse inadequate. He relieved my embarrassment, rapidly
becoming an angry embarrassment, by continuing:

‘And I must apologize for failing to make proper comment on the weather. I have observed that my fellow-countrymen are often alarmed by my advances; so, when abroad, I no longer address
them unless invited. But since you yourself have had the politeness to call my attention to an oversight that can be remedied—though, I fear, only temporarily—and shall indeed be
remedied forthwith’—he proceeded full-handedly to do up his buttons under the fascinated gaze of waiter and cashier—‘I wish to emerge from my newspaper. Sometimes I feel
that journalists believe what they write, and that depresses me. My name, sir, is Oliver Poss.’

It is hard to give the quality of Poss’s conversational style. In the absence of his rich and detestable voice, the mere words have a suggestion of pomposity; but in fact he enjoyed
listening to himself far too much to be either unctuous or affected. Speech bubbled from him fast and clear.

I introduced myself, sat down again and offered him a drink. I was of course eager to know how so much flamboyance fitted into Tripoli or anywhere else. A wild guess was, I remember, that he
might be the advance agent of some circus touring the Middle East.

‘I thought as much,’ he said, as soon as he heard my name. ‘Indeed, I wouldn’t dream of deceiving you. I knew it. May I offer you a cigar?’

He explained that he had arrived by train from Turkey on the previous afternoon, and assured me that he had not asked for me by name. He had merely found out the movements of the principal
Europeans in town. And so—here he was!

‘But if you wanted to see me,’ I said, ‘you had only to look in the telephone book.’

He dismissed my remark with a wave of the hand, as if it were a shallow formality unnecessary between gentlemen.

‘Now how is that cigar?’ he asked. ‘Up to standard?’

‘A good deal over my standard.’

‘You wouldn’t mind changing to them, eh?’

I naturally jumped to the conclusion that he was a traveller in cigars—though no one who made any enquiries at all could imagine there was a market in Syria. The duty on imported tobacco
was prohibitive; and I hardly ever saw an Arab smoke a cigar, even if rich enough to afford the utmost luxury.

‘My dear sir,’ I said. ‘I’m poor and a pipe-smoker.’

‘Mr. Amberson, the cigar you have just accepted is no more expensive than those I have delivered to you. And, in my opinion, it is the best that has been rolled in Cuba for the last thirty
years. Elisa ordered me to market the best. She has paid for the best. I thought I had found the best. Well, I hadn’t. This is better.’

‘Who is Elisa?’ I asked.

‘A name I just mentioned to prove my bona fides. Mr. Amber­son, I have sent you certain boxes of tools and seeds. Marks, P in a Diamond. Transhipment at Bari. But they were not the
same crates that came to Bari from London.’

He didn’t look like a police agent, and I didn’t think his game was likely to be blackmail—not, at any rate, if he knew any­thing of Kasr-el-Sittat and its powers of
retaliation. I admitted that I had received such shipments, and added that there was no mystery about them.

‘In the light of my experience I observe, Mr. Amberson, that your status is amateur,’ he said. ‘Therefore, as a professional, I will be the first to put my cards on the table.
I deal in luxury. Brandy from France to England. Dollars and gold from England to France. Even a little unfolding of the iron curtain, Mr. Amberson. Damnation! The least of commissars desires a
trifle of silk to cover the proletarian nakedness of his mistress, and a little capital abroad in case he should guess wrong and have to hop it. And then—your cigars to Syria.

‘Sir, I am wanted by the police of several countries, and let me insist—since the Englishman, however cosmopolitan, has no respect for any cops but his own—that while I
frequently visit our dear land, I should hesitate to do so under my own name of Oliver Poss. I mention these details,’ he added genially, ‘merely to give you confidence, for, believe
me, crime cannot pay unless the criminals have confidence in one another—not that I should apply that crude monosyllable to my efforts to raise the standard of living in countries that are
determined to depress it, or to your straightforward trading, but you will see what I mean. Now, Mr. Amberson, Elisa Cantemir is financ­ing my shipment of cigars. I want to talk to
her.’

All this mouthing, lit by an occasional shaft of sense, con­vinced me that Poss might well be some sort of useful outside expert, like myself, but that he would never be trusted with any
knowledge of Elisa’s motives. I was very cautious. I asked him why on earth he should suppose Elisa Cantemir was in Syria.

‘I don’t,’ he replied. ‘But I thought you might know where she is. And as I had some business in Turkey, it was easy to slip down and see you.’

‘Why not write to the usual address?’

‘God’s Weary Wounds! Because I would get back two lines and a cheque. I don’t want a cheque. I want permission to market this cigar instead of the other. And I can’t get
that without talking to Elisa. She might be anywhere, anywhere at all. If you really don’t know, we could spend a pleasant hour in guessing. There’s always a city to fit the homeless,
and if they have money to move they find it. My personal conjecture, for what it’s worth, is that she’s in New York. That tall, smart streak of nerves, where else could she be but New
York? Madi­son Avenue on an autumn morning—now isn’t that Elisa?’

I have never been in New York, but the suggestion of a clear, high, straight street in the autumn of a continental climate cer­tainly fitted Elisa if she were judged on appearance only. For
the true Elisa it was wrong. She had too much depth and dark­ness for your windy air. Oliver Poss evidently knew her, but not well.

‘I like your game,’ I said. ‘What city do you choose for me?’

‘My dear sir. I give you credit, with your character, for being where you want to be—or think you want to be. But I must admit I am puzzled. You do not look at all the sort of
con­signee that I expected to find.’

This casual meeting in the Hotel de Syrie might pass, for it was obvious to everyone that we were strangers; but whatever the link between Poss and myself—and it seemed at least to
exist—the less we were seen together the better. I gave him my address, so exactly that he would not have to ask his way, and told him to call on me after dark. I also took from him another
cigar.

It was impossible to get in touch with Elisa. There was not a telephone or telegraph line within ten miles of Kasr-el-Sittat. The colony had no more need of communication with the rest of Syria
than any other remote monastery. All I could do in an emergency—and as the emergency had never arisen I hadn’t tried—was to telephone a number in Istanbul that Gisorius had given
me, identifying myself by a certain use of the voice, and have my message transmitted to Kasr-el-Sittat by wireless. It seemed to me that Oliver Poss was not a name to be bandied about on
telephones, and, in any case, unlikely that I could get a reply the same afternoon. I decided to interview him first, and report to Elisa next day.

Part of his story could be checked, for in my store was one of Bari crates, awaiting transport to the colony. I told the ware­houseman to take it upstairs, and there I broke it open. I found
a compartment at the bottom, lined with lead foil, containing a dozen boxes of twenty-five cigars. I lit one. It seemed to be identical with that which Osterling had offered me on the night of my
initiation into Kasr-el-Sittat.

Then I lit the cigar Poss had given me, and tried alternate puffs. Whether it would have been at once recognized as the better by the palate of a real connoisseur I could not tell, but it was
certainly no worse. Then Poss up to a point had told the truth. To what point? The picture presented to me was im­possible. Elisa and the Secretariat were far too conscientious to risk a
scandal for the sake of a few cigars.

My servant, Boulos, whom I had placed at the obscure street door to watch for Poss, told me that he was startled by him. The man arrived with the silence and efficiency of a great cat. He patted
Boulos on the shoulder, slipped a large tip into his hand and started up the stairs without even asking if it were the right house. I suppose he was accustomed to do business single-handed in
alleys and courtyards which might to a stranger appear threatening. But Poss was unthreatenable. He had a confidence in his own judgment so absolute that it affects me as I write about him; and the
dislike I feel for his memory is seen to be—well, just but inhumane.

I did not offer to show him the garden which was now so sacred to me. We took our drinks on to the terrace, where he stretched and unbuttoned himself in satisfaction with the Medi­terranean
and the moon. I told him that I expected to know very soon where Elisa was, and I might be able to get in touch with her quicker than he could. What exactly did he want? And where had he met
her?

‘Mr. Amberson,’ he said, ‘I’ll be fair. The trouble with you is that I cannot get over the impression I am speaking to the British Consul. Confidence springs to my lips,
takes one look at you and hides her head behind my dentures.’

I laughed, and put a box of his own cigars upon the table.

‘That is of material assistance,’ he admitted. ‘And now—would you tell me what the devil you do with them?’

I had thought out an answer to that during the afternoon.

‘I send them to Egypt by caique. El Mina is one of the centres of the caique traffic—schooners up and down the coast, and most of them avoiding customs duties when they can. I
tran­ship those boxes—and others—for an account in Alexandria.’

‘Nearly good enough,’ he said. ‘Why?’

‘I’m a trader in the Levant,’ I replied, ‘and I am afraid we just get used to doing favours for our friends. In the eyes of the Arab it’s never wrong to swindle a
government—especially the Egyptian Government.’

‘And the friend in Alexandria?’

‘Straight streets and a windy town,’ I said. ‘But it isn’t autumn yet and wouldn’t suit her.’

‘Here’s luck to you and your caiques!’ he exclaimed, raising his glass. ‘Confidence is flooded forth from her retreat. Now, I’ll answer your second question
first—where did I meet Elisa? In a bloody great marshalling yard, what was left of it, outside Budapest. I was, my dear sir, being paid, for the first time in my life, to be international. A
trusted servant of UNRRA. But let us not be harsh. They had no time for enquiries, and no judgment to do without them—a situation admirably suited to my cosmopolitan experience in trade.

‘I was in charge of a train—indeed of several trains. But this one had fourteen wagons of excellent American food consigned to the Ukraine. Amberson, there were but two destinies for
the contents of those wagons. They might be sold by the Soviet Government to high officials and ballet dancers, or by me to hungry Turks who were prepared to pay. And in the marshal­ling yards
was a state of muddle to which, I must admit, I had contributed. Some drunken Russian sentries, an underpaid yardmaster, and myself in an invaluable and welcome uniform! Sir, I was the only man on
miles of rusty tracks who knew his mind—and that was to uncouple the food wagons at the rear of the train, and set them safely on their somewhat circuitous route to Turkey.

‘The front part of my train—oh, it was very military in­deed! But, hell’s bells, we’re all human! Elisa was allowed to stretch her legs, with a bayonet about two feet
from her backside. Under the arc lights of the yard she had a head just like a skull, Amberson. All eyes. We hadn’t much time to talk. She said to me in English: “I’ll give you a
thousand quid to get me out of this.” “Where?” I answered, for it was obvious that if she had it in her pocket she wouldn’t be on that train. “In Turkey or
Roumania,” she said. I took another look at her, and that was that. “Turkey it is,” I said. So I broke open a case of prime ham, and contrived her absence during the distribution.
Then I packed her in among the rations with a crate of beer and a can-opener, and didn’t see her again till the Turkish frontier.’

‘That’s not quite her story,’ I said to him, cold with jealousy.

‘No? Well, no doubt she expanded it a bit. Played the tragic queen, eh?’ he asked, searching my face. ‘Ah, now I see! Well, well, Amberson, well, well, well! This clarifies the
whole situa­tion. At last I understand those favours to a friend! But have you never discovered my dear sir, that Elisa romanticizes her­self? Oh, I can guess where she added the little
touch of art! She was discovered by the Turkish police, you know. Very obstinate, the Turks! Only believe what they can see! “All right,” I said at last. “No girl friend, no grub
for Turkey.” And she had to put up a show for them. God’s Glory, Amberson, she’s not my type at all! No planks for me, however well they’re carved! I like to know I’ve
got something in my arms. A bit of bounce, eh?’

I think I was even more angry than before, but it was an easier anger to disguise. I could forgive, contemptuously, his lack of taste. What annoyed me was his statement that Elisa romanticized
herself. I saw that it was true. She did paint herself a little darker, a little more savagely interesting than was strictly accurate; and at once, in my own mind, I was hot in defence of that
delightfully feminine trait, though it had never before occurred to me that she possessed it.

‘My motives were of the purest,’ added Oliver Poss. ‘A thousand quid, and I got it.’

‘And that ended your UNRRA experience?’ I asked.

‘Good God, no! I did just as much for them as for myself. They only found out about my record when they wanted to give me a decoration. By that time, Amberson, I was again a capitalist.
Not very rich, you understand, but liquid.’